Think You Know How To Study? Think Again | Hacker News Reader

Think You Know How To Study? Think Again

npr.org

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As a professional student, I will save you all some time. The secret of studying is encompassed in three programs:

* Anki[1] (spaced repetition[2])

* SelfControl[3] (avoid procrastination, block websites)

* Pink Noise[4] (block noise to study anywhere, anytime)

[1]: http://ichi2.net/anki/

[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition

[3]: http://visitsteve.com/work/selfcontrol/

[4]: http://simplynoise.com/

I started watching Anki videos and I downloaded the program and installed it before the first video was done. This looks really amazing, thank you!

Would love to get your thoughts on Quizlet http://quizlet.com/

No computer science in your default subjects on the right? >=p For shame!

Anyway, here's a review from the perspective of someone who currently uses Anki off and on as his study aid du jour.

Your samples ("Browse by Subject") look like they're targeted at high-school level education; that was kind of a turn-off. (That is, I was expecting this section to give me an incentive to switch, but I already know this stuff pretty well - I was hoping to see higher level physics and chemistry stuff.)

I was worried that I wouldn't be able to insert images, but I found that.

Add LaTeX rendering and I would almost be sold.

For me, the biggest draw for Anki is that it exploits SRS (Piotr Wozniak's forgetting curve, etc).

If Quizlet did that (and showed me how it did it) and maybe e-mailed me when it was time to review cards (or maybe a digest of how many cards I need to study today) that would be enough to get me to switch over, and to recommend it to friends over Anki.

Point taken on the "default subjects" on the homepage - they were just meant to show off some of the most common stuff we have, but with 3 millions flashcard sets it's not easy to show it all :)

LaTeX, SRS, and study reminders are all three on our ideas list. We're making a big development push on audio first, and then are going to look more into these.

Our "Learn Mode" keeps track of what you know and what you don't - but only in the short term. We'd love to have better ways to help you remember things long-term.

Is there a version of self control for windows? Can you just use the HOSTS file to block sites? I have rescuetime for firefox and etc but I would prefer just a blanket ban.

I think the NYT article (linked to in the NPR one) has a better, less metaphor-rife explanation of the current research.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html?_...

Doing practice quizzes can help you retrieve information on test day. "Tests have a very bad rap as a measurement tool," Carey says. But psychologists have found self-tests slow down the forgetting of material you've studied. "If you study something once, and then you test yourself on it," Carey says, "you do better than if you study it two times over."

Makes sense. You get the feedback of feeling good when you get answers right, and you learn from mistakes when you get something wrong (i.e. the memory of thinking about your wrong answer and the right answer 'sticks' better in your mind).

These are nice tips. I employ some of them at times, such as testing yourself and mixing it up, but the other ones I haven't. I tend to study either in my room at my house or the same desk at the library. Maybe I should try to mix it up sometimes. And the spacing it out thing...ha. I procrastinate waaay to much for that. Maybe I should stop that.

They assume that the purpose of study is to pass tests.

It's not so much an assumption on their part as a realization thats what we've turned the education system into, at least in America.

In primary, secondary and even advanced schooling, there is a heavy focus on the students doing well on the (section/chapter/book) test just so they can drop it all and cram for the next one.

Sure, there is some incremental build up of knowledge or they wouldn't be getting anywhere. However, there is little focus on cumulative review and testing.

>thats what we've turned the education system into, at least in America

This is in no part helped by NCLB testing. The school stopped normal classes for a week to spend time teaching us how to take tests so that the school could perform well.

Who can be surprised that the last thing people are actually learning in schools is how to best prepare for tests?

Indeed. This is why I aced at Imperial but sucked at Cambridge. If your goal is to learn proficiency in a skill or a set of knowledge that is presented to you, then test, test, test. But my test-acing skills didn't help when the goal was to go out and find all the information I needed and then draw conclusions.

A British friend with a PhD from Manchester claims that is why the UK PhD system produces more Nobels per capita than any other - it essentially throws students into the water with little structure and forces them to sink or swim, which better prepares them for real-world research.

... and helps keep the denominator of the per capita small.

Well, it looks like some students will be getting a surprise test tomorrow.

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